Chapter 13

At first, he thought everyone lived like this.

It had never seemed strange to Mugyeol that his Alpha father had both a male Omega husband and another woman as a mistress, or that he had half brothers who shared only one parent with him.

One day, Mugyeol asked the male Omega who had given birth to him, “Why isn’t Father coming?”

“Who knows…”

“Why wait for him if he’s not coming?”

“I wonder…”

Sitting in front of a massive birthday cake, young Mugyeol had genuinely wondered why his Alpha father never came for his birthday—and why his Omega father kept waiting when he already knew he would not.

His father never spent birthdays with his legal family. Mugyeol learned much later that those days were reserved for the other household his father treated as his ‘real family.’

On Mugyeol’s own birthdays, his Alpha father never came either. Lying awake before midnight, Mugyeol would stare at the dark outline of his bedroom door and imagine it opening. His father never appeared.

To Mugyeol, his Alpha father was more like a visitor who sometimes arrived with presents. His visits were exciting; his departures left a hollow behind. Life alone with his Omega father lacked nothing practical, yet one side of Mugyeol’s world always felt empty.

That peace shattered right after his Alpha father introduced him to his other ‘real family.’

One day, his Alpha father promised him a good meal and took him to meet them: the pretty aunt Mugyeol had only heard about and twin older brothers who looked strangely like him. A massive cake sat in front of them, perhaps for their birthday, while Mugyeol stood at the far end of the gathering and clapped along.

On the uncomfortable ride home, Mugyeol could not stop thinking about the warm way his father had smiled at that other family. “Go on inside.”

“Goodbye, Father.”

After bowing politely to the father who looked at him without a trace of warmth, Mugyeol went home and told his Omega father that he had eaten with his Alpha father—and that the other family had been there too.

His Omega father went pale with fury and immediately made a phone call. Mugyeol understood little of what followed. He only knew that his small, cozy world began breaking apart piece by piece.

His parents fought at home and outside it. Mugyeol went to court holding his Omega dad’s hand, and sometimes he was sent to sleep at his Alpha father’s house.

Not long afterward, Mugyeol moved into his Alpha father’s house with the other family. The house was full of people, yet he had never felt more alone.

Before leaving, his Omega father spoke with a solemn expression, “Mugyeol-ah. Dad isn’t leaving because I dislike you. You must know that. Understood?”

“Then are you leaving because you hate Father?”

“No. I don’t hate him. I loved him. You are a child born of love.”

“Then you don’t have to leave!”

“It’s because your dad is too lacking. I’m stepping aside so people who are a better match can be happy together.”

“…”

“Take care, Mugyeol-ah. And don’t you let that family beat you.”

His Omega father left looking both sorrowful and strangely relieved. Mugyeol did not understand the warning about letting that family beat him, but he understood one thing: his dad had lost.

He heard his parents had married for love. People said it was a marriage that overcame the stark differences in their family backgrounds. But they had trouble conceiving a child, and his Alpha father eventually turned his eyes elsewhere.

The woman with whom Mugyeol’s father had an affair bore twin sons first. The relationship was illicit, but one of the twins was an Alpha, so even Grandfather had apparently not objected too strongly.

And after that, born to his legal Omega wife, was the Extreme Dominant Alpha, Yeon Mugyeol.

Mugyeol’s Alpha father had been overjoyed. An ordinary Alpha himself, unlike Mugyeol’s Extreme Dominant Alpha grandfather, he took enormous pride in having sired an Extreme Dominant Alpha and seemed to believe the child would make his own position unassailable.

After the divorce, when Mugyeol came to live under the same roof, his Alpha father said, “From the beginning, this is the natural order of things.”

Mugyeol did not know what his father meant by ‘the natural order.’ He only knew that, somehow, it had made him the outcast in this house.

“Dad told me he gave birth to me because he loved you, Father.”

“Yes. I loved him once too. But later I met someone who suited me better—someone I was more compatible with, someone who felt destined for me.”

“…”

“It was simply bad timing that I met the person truly meant for me later. If you were hurt because of that, I’m sorry.”

His father apologized without a trace of guilt or remorse in his eyes.

“Your stepmother and I have a compatibility score over ninety percent. This was unavoidable—destiny, really. I wasn’t happy with your dad because our relationship went against the natural order.”

Compatibility. Destiny. The natural order.

His father’s naked self-justification burned itself into young Mugyeol’s mind.

Love did not matter if someone more compatible—or more ‘fated’—appeared later. According to his father, wavering then was only natural. It was the natural order.

So marriage, Mugyeol concluded, should begin with high compatibility and, according to his father’s logic, ideally follow the ‘natural’ pairing of opposite sexes. Only then could it be safe from betrayal.

Otherwise, the moment someone ‘better’ appeared, everything could end exactly as his parents’ marriage had. And another child like Yeon Mugyeol would be left behind.

❖ ❖ ❖

One weekend, while the family sat together on the terrace, Mugyeol shouted, “I hate apples! I hate mealy ones even more!”

The family knew almost nothing about him. They did not know what Yeon Mugyeol liked or disliked, and while they laughed and chatted among themselves, no one seemed to notice that he had not spoken once—or that no one had spoken to him.

He had never shared their trips or family memories, so he had nothing to add to their stories and no reason to laugh along. His frustration kept building.

“This isn’t fun at all!”

He overturned the plate in front of him and stormed inside, but no one followed. Dinner was the same. Hungry, Mugyeol waited for someone to call him so he could come out pretending to give in, but no one did. The only message that reached him came through his father: no one would indulge his tantrums.

He felt like a ghost in his own house. No one looked at him or seemed to notice he was there. When his brothers pouted, everyone coddled them; when Mugyeol sulked, no one even glanced his way.

While he resented the two older brothers who ostracized him, he still longed to play with them. He wanted to ride on his father’s shoulders like his brothers, eat snacks with his stepmother, and play board games as a trio with the twins.

Unable to have any of it, Mugyeol grew increasingly defiant and rebellious.

Every time Mugyeol reached for someone, loneliness seemed to turn the relationship jagged in his hands. Simply existing among other people began to feel exhausting.

❖ ❖ ❖

Ryu Yi-seon.

The kid he hated so much.

“Yi-seon-ah, eat this too.”

“Yeah, hyung.”

A kid who had a gentle older brother, unlike himself.

Grandfather even praised the boy for being calm and mature. Worse, Yi-seon’s parents smiled when they looked at him and held his hand as they entered the house. Just watching them made Mugyeol sick with resentment.

“Hi.”

Yi-seon had tried to say hello first, but Mugyeol refused him. Whenever Yi-seon came near, Mugyeol slipped away, until eventually the boy stopped trying. Grandfather had introduced them and told them to be friends, but they remained awkward strangers who barely exchanged greetings.

That distant stalemate finally broke one day while Mugyeol was crying on the lawn.

“Where did those hyungs go? I’m gonna catch them and beat them all up! Until they play with me…!” Mugyeol cried alone under the blazing sun.

The skin around his eyes, rubbed raw to wipe away tears, stung painfully.

That was when Ryu Yi-seon approached again. “Yeon Mugyeol. Are you an idiot?”

Out of nowhere, Yi-seon called him an idiot. When Mugyeol glared back through tears, Yi-seon launched into baffling advice about how, if he was going to hit his brothers, he should at least do it where no one could see…

Mugyeol tried to look past him for his brothers, but Yi-seon suddenly cupped his cheeks in both hands and turned his face back.

Yi-seon asked, “Why do you like those hyungs so much?”

That was the first time Mugyeol really looked at Yi-seon’s face. In his tear-blurred vision, the harsh sunlight beating down on the lawn seemed gentler when it caught in Yi-seon’s eyes.

“Those hyungs tease you every day and call you an idiot. But you’re not an idiot.”

Ryu Yi-seon was right. Everyone else was stupid. They knew nothing. Hearing Yi-seon say so made Mugyeol’s chest swell with a new, unfamiliar feeling: for the first time, someone was on his side.

“They’re my family. I live with them too…”

He felt wronged and deeply sorrowful.

We’re the same family, so why doesn’t anyone come near me? Why does no one listen to what I say, laughing only among themselves? I want to be with them too.

Yi-seon listened while Mugyeol stumbled through feelings he had never known how to explain. For once, Mugyeol no longer felt like a ghost drifting through someone else’s family. With Yi-seon holding his face and listening, he felt solid again. The tears kept coming.

When Mugyeol could not stop crying, Yi-seon wiped his tears for him. The touch was gentle against skin Mugyeol had already rubbed raw himself, warming his face in an entirely different way.

“Then play with me.”

“…”

He didn’t mind that touch.

No one had ever wiped his tears before. No one had ever listened to everything that hurt and then simply offered to stay.

A warm breeze moved between them, stirring Yi-seon’s hair. Mugyeol watched it flutter and, at last, smiled back. “Okay.”

❖ ❖ ❖

For the first time, he had someone on his side.

A kid named Ryu Yi-seon.

Yi-seon was sweet, kind, and somehow always composed. He was taller than Mugyeol, and even though they were both little kids, he often seemed impossibly grown-up. He was gentle with Mugyeol, but when the older boys bullied him, Yi-seon planted himself in their way like a tiny knight.

“Why is Mugyeol an idiot? Did you forget Mugyeol got first place in the memory card game last time?”

“That’s just called luck!”

“How is that luck? He memorized everything after looking just once. Hangyeol hyung, you kept forgetting and came in dead last.”

“Th-That’s only because the pictures were weird!”

“If Mugyeol is an idiot, then you’re a king idiot, hyung. No, actually, you’re the only idiot, hyung!”

At moments like that, Yi-seon seemed like the most dependable person in the world.

Whenever the twins hit Yi-seon for standing up for him, Mugyeol retaliated twice as hard. Once, after they ganged up on him, he gave both brothers bloody noses. His parents scolded only Mugyeol, as usual, but for once he did not care.

He was no longer alone. He and Yi-seon had secrets that belonged only to them, games they could laugh about afterward, and someone beside them whenever his brothers picked a fight.

Yi-seon alone was in his corner, and Ryu Yi-seon was his entire world.

Unfortunately, Mugyeol was not the only one who thought Yi-seon was kind and admirable. Everyone liked Yi-seon and wanted to be close to him—a kind of easy popularity that rebellious, difficult Mugyeol had never known.

“Mugyeol-ah, this is Su-ah noona, the one I told you about. She’s great at drawing and great at taekwondo too.”

One day, Yi-seon even brought an older girl with him. He smiled as he introduced the supposedly amazing noona, and for some reason Mugyeol found his face infuriating that day.

“…Ham Su-ah.”

“You remember noona’s name so well, huh? You could barely even remember mine.”

That remark stoked Mugyeol’s fury even further.

Does he really think I asked because I didn’t know his name?

I only asked because I wanted to hear him say it himself. I wanted us to start over properly, from the very first hello.

Yi-seon was gentle with everyone, but he was especially sweet to this noona. He gave her the gold crayon without hesitation and even lost jump-rope contests to her on purpose.

Mugyeol knew because he had seen Yi-seon do more than thirty double-unders before. This time Yi-seon stopped at five and lost. He had done it on purpose.

Because he liked Ham Su-ah.

When he played with me, he beat me every time… And the winner got to snap his fingers against the other’s wrist over and over…

The fact that Yi-seon lost only to Ham Su-ah and saved his sweetest treatment for her made Mugyeol’s eyes sting with fresh tears.

He had been absurdly proud when the red marks from Yi-seon’s finger snaps lasted until evening, calling them proof that Yi-seon had left a mark on him. He had even planned to ask for another round next time. And now Yi-seon was betraying him like this…

Burning with childish vengeance, Mugyeol decided Yi-seon needed a taste of his own medicine.

I’m going to be nice to noona too. Far nicer than you are.

Then Yi-seon would finally understand this miserable ache. Some feelings, Mugyeol decided, could only be understood firsthand.

“Noona, eat more of this.”

He deliberately gave Su-ah the tastiest bites and saved extra portions of Yi-seon’s favorite snacks for her alone.

Yi-seon responded by treating her even better. Somehow it turned into a competition, which only irritated Mugyeol more.

You’re not reflecting on your actions?

You’re supposed to regret it and be nice only to me…!

Determined to keep Yi-seon away from her, Mugyeol deliberately turned his back and played only with Su-ah. He could feel Yi-seon watching him, and to Mugyeol it looked exactly like jealousy over having noona monopolized.

At that point, it went beyond hurt feelings into outright fury.

Are you seriously looking at me with jealousy? When you became close with me first?

Day by day, grievances piled up.

As the years passed, Mugyeol grew closer to Ham Su-ah and the three of them became inseparable, but the things that bothered him never stopped bothering him.

And what he hated most of all was Yi-seon disappearing from his side.

❖ ❖ ❖